"The Kingdom of God is Like ..."

(Please read Mark 4:26-34)


The little boy
with a missing front tooth
and the blackest of black hair
(that was quite uncontrollable)
said to his mother,
“I need a few seeds
and some wet paper towels.”

The mother called
neighbor and relatives and friends
and found seeds.
They didn’t know what kind
and they hoped
that they weren’t too old
to sprout
(although they looked too old).

The little boy
wet the paper towels
and sandwiched
the tiny, begged-for seeds
between them …
and then he went to bed.

The next morning,
the little boy with ‘bed-head’
stumbled and yawned
his way to the seeds
that he so carefully
tucked into their own ‘bed’
of soggy paper towels
just before their bedtime
and his, the night before.

The child’s mother saw
his disappointment
and noticed the worry lines
on his brow.
In a soft voice, she said,
“You have done what you are to do.
That is enough, my beloved child.
The seed will sprout and grow.”

And so, he did
as the one who loved him most
had asked of him …
He would sleep and rise …
night and day.
He would wait
and trust
and hope
and allow
for a great mystery
that would sprout
from a child’s homework
and a little water.

“What is this all about?”
the little boy with unruly hair
and a missing-tooth-smile asked.
“It is such a mystery to me,
this little sprout,”
he exclaimed one morning.

As he looked for answers,
the beloved child heard words
from the one who loved him
more than life itself.
“The kingdom of God is like ….”